NBA Street Showdown (PSP)

CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
Detailed editors' rating
Overall score: 7.7 (3.5 stars)
• Average user rating:
  Write your own review
• See all user reviews

Product summary

Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Bob Colayco
• Reviewed on: 04/26/2005
• Released on: 04/27/2005

Since the release of the original NBA Street in 2001, the franchise has been the definitive arcade basketball game experience. With NBA Street Showdown, the Street series finally makes its way onto a handheld platform. Though shrunken down into pocket-sized format, Street Showdown still offers much of the same high-flying, rim-rattling action as its big brothers on the home consoles, complete with a career mode, minigames, and head-to-head play. While the game is currently the best choice for hoops fanatics looking for a portable fix, veterans of the console versions may find themselves a little frustrated with controls that aren't quite as responsive as they could have been.

The NBA Street series makes its handheld debut on the PSP.

For those who aren't as familiar with the Street series, Street Showdown is a three-on-three street basketball game that includes partial rosters from all 30 NBA teams, as well as 24 NBA legends, such as Pete Maravich, Julius Erving, and Earvin "Magic" Johnson. Unfortunately, the rosters don't seem to be updated to reflect the latest NBA trades. In Showdown, Antoine Walker isn't reunited with his boy Paul Pierce and the Boston Celtics. Baron Davis is not yet rejuvenating the Golden State Warriors, and Chris Webber is still moping in Sacramento. There's no way to trade players around, either. At any rate, you can play pickup games with the NBA teams, or enter a career mode where you create your own customized baller and take him or her through a series of blacktop challenges to "own" various real-life courts throughout the country, which include Rucker Park in Harlem and Mosswood in Oakland. Along the way you'll unlock courts and legendary players, and earn points that you can use to improve your own baller's skills, to buy new moves and dunks, or to purchase articles of clothing. There are quite a few rewards to unlock in NBA Street Showdown, so you can expect to spend many hours playing games in the "king of the courts" career mode if you want to see everything.

The gameplay in NBA Street Showdown is arcade-style, blacktop basketball. In other words, you're not going to be running set plays to free up for a textbook midrange jumper like you learned on your junior high school team. Instead, a typical match in Showdown is played above the rim and behind the arc. You'll be using your ball handlers to break down defenders off the dribble with juke moves, and then passing off to your finishers who'll go high in the air for spectacular alley-oops. Or you can pass to open shooters for long-range jumpers that are worth two points, instead of one for a dunk or a regular shot. By stringing together fakes and punctuating them with dunks and made baskets, you'll build up a combo meter that, when filled, will let you pull off a gamebreaker. Gamebreakers are special shots that give you points and also take away points from the opposing team's score. Like in NBA Street Vol. 2 on consoles, you can pocket gamebreakers in Showdown and try to build up for a more powerful gamebreaker 2 for even bigger bonus points. NBA Street Showdown certainly captures the spirit of its console brethren. Games are fast paced and simple enough to appeal to casual hoops fans, while remaining deep enough to keep hardcore basketball fans entertained as they make their way through the career mode and upgrade their created ballers.

As far as controls go, NBA Street Showdown is similar to NBA Street Vol. 2.

The biggest blemish of the game is that the controls have been compromised somewhat in order to account for fewer buttons on the PSP. Turbo functionality is mapped to the shoulder buttons. Using these in concert with the trick, pass, and shoot buttons will unleash an array of different moves, passes, shots, and dunks. Unfortunately, the fact that there's only two turbo buttons and one trick button makes for a lot less variety in available moves than in NBA Street Vol. 2. You can still go into menus outside of a game and choose from dozens of different jukes and dunks to map to the various button combinations, but within a game, there are only a few different jukes and dunk types you're going to be able to pull off with just two turbo buttons. To compensate, the developers have made it possible to hold down the trick or shoot buttons in concert with the turbos, so as to double the number of moves available to you at once. So doing a juke with the R button and tapping the trick button is different from using the R button while holding down the trick button.

See more CNET content tagged:

career,

console,

Electronic Arts Inc.,

Sony PSP,

handheld

User reviews

• Average user rating: 0 stars Not yet available
  Back to product review
• My rating: 0 stars Write review

• Showing 1 of 1 user reviewSee 1 user review

• 4.5 stars

  "Classic, similar to NBA Street V1."

  by digid25 on January 3, 2007

  read more

• See 1 user review Write review

Where to buy

store	price	in stock?	rating
	$44.90	Yes

see prices from 1 store

Where to buy NBA Street Showdown (PSP)

• store price in stock
• Amazon.com Marketplace $44.90 Yes
• See store